2018 Review – Speaking, Blogs, New job, and more…

2018 is almost over and it was an exciting year jam packed full of adventures! In this post I will recap some of the highlights from 2018.

New job

At the start of 2018 I started a new job with Avanade as a Group Manager: Cloud Transformation/DevOps. Who is Avanade? Avanade 35,000 plus employees and is a global consulting firm focused on the Microsoft platform. Avanade is owned by Accenture and Microsoft. I have been at the firm for exactly a year. It has been a fun ride so far working with really smart people on some exciting and very large projects. After I joined Avanade featured me on a Q&A spotlight blog.

I moved away from System Center related work to only working on Azure, Azure Stack, and DevOps project. I had been making this shifting in this direction for a couple of years but the new job helped me transition to the type of work I wanted to do. I am a firm believer in change and through change comes growth. I still have my System Center skills but for me it was time to make a change in my career focus to be challenged and keep growing. Looking back I would make the same choice over again. You can see this change reflected in the blog topics I have posted, topics I have presented on this past year. My new role with Avanade has also helped me move my focus to cloud and DevOps.

I highly recommend any of the Microsoft Professional Program tracks. It is excellent training!

Changes in user group involvement

I stepped down from the MN System Center user group board after 6 years. The board is filled with great people and is as strong as ever. I will continue to speak at the UG from time to time when it makes sense and may even attend some of the meetings. I needed to step down to step up my Azure community focus. I have been leading the MN Azure user group for the past few years and now I am able to step up my involvement with this UG. More info about the MN Azure user group can be found here: http://mnazureusergroup.com Some of the key meetings/topics in my opinion from 2018 are

As you can see we had some really great speakers both from the community and Microsoft. We do our best to collect the slides from presenters and upload them on the UG site. Past meeting info is here: http://mnazureusergroup.com/category/past-meetings

Key blog posts

With everything else going on I did my best to keep up with new blogs over the year. Same theme with my blog topics being focused on Azure and DevOps. Some of my key blogs from 2018 are:

This was the Inaugural conference for Blacks in Technology. BITCon brought together all walks of life in tech such as professionals, entrepreneurs, influencers, subject matter experts, students, and thought leaders.

BITCon featured DJ’s and radio hosts throughout the event and even had a tech panel with well-known rapper Nipsey Hussle.

Another cool thing that happened at BITCon 2018 is that the mayor of St Paul MN Melvin Carter and senator Amy Klobuchar spoke at one of the breakfast sessions. BITCon 2018 was a conference like none I have attended before. It was great to be around people that look like me that are in tech! Not only did I have the opportunity to present at this conference I also was able to post a couple of blogs on the BITCon site as well.

One of the best feelings is to know that attendees from your speaking sessions leave with value and take action as a result. This happened from my tech influencer session at BITCon! Nana Thompson a developer attended my tech influencer session and used the session as a catalyst to catapult himself on his journery to becoming a tech influencer. Since BITCon Nana wrote a blog recapping his experience at BITCon 2018. Nana did a great job on the blog post and you can check it out here: https://seesparkbox.com/foundry/blacks_in_technology_conference_2018_diversity. You can follow Na Na here @typical_nana. I am looking forward to seeing what he does next!

Friend and fellow Microsoft MVP Sam Erskine also came over from the UK to present at BITCon 2018. Here is a picture from hanging with Sam and a picture from his session.

The last conference of the year was Experts Live Europe 2018 (ELEU 2018). Experts Live Europe is a Microsoft community conference with a focus on Microsoft cloud, datacenter and workplace management.

Top experts from around the world present discussion panels, ask-the-experts sessions and breakout sessions and cover the latest products, technologies and solutions. It was great to see many fellow MVP friends and friends from the Microsoft community. Plus it was my first time going to Europe!

Experts Live Europe 2018 was held in Prague. I presented 2 sessions at ELEU 2018. I presented: